


strapped to a moving vehicle

by respoftw



Series: 2019 Hurt/Comfort Bingo [5]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Fluff and Crack, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Near Death Experiences
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-08
Updated: 2019-08-08
Packaged: 2020-08-13 03:35:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,066
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20167489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/respoftw/pseuds/respoftw
Summary: In space, no-one can hear you scream.What a crock of shit.





	strapped to a moving vehicle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KagekaNecavi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KagekaNecavi/gifts).

In space, no-one can hear you scream.

What a crock of shit.

Rodney was screaming and John could hear him just fine. 

“Hold the hell on, McKay.” John barked the order out as he fought the jumper for control. Rodney had succeeded in getting the drive operational so they were no longer dead in the proverbial water. This should have been a good thing but it wasn’t. They may have had the drive pods back but the jumper wasn’t responding to John’s mental commands anymore and they were spiralling and heading towards atmosphere.

That shouldn’t have been a bad thing except that it was. Because Rodney was still strapped to the outside of the damn jumper in an EVA suit.

“Hold on? Is that the best you can do, Colonel? Hold the fuck on?”

John swallowed the relief at hearing Rodney yell instead of scream. They weren’t safe yet.

“I’m pretty sure I said hold the hell on but hold the fuck on works too,” John yelled back. 

“Oh, jokes. Just what I need right now.”

John could almost hear the roll of Rodney’s eyes and it made him smile. 

“You realise, of course, that if you don’t find a way to alter course soon I’m going to burn up in atmo?”

John’s smile dropped from his face like a stone. “That’s not gonna happen, Rodney.”

Rodney didn’t answer that. John could hear him breathing over the radio, heavy and obviously panicked but trying not to show it. 

John squeezed his eyes shut tightly against his own rising panic. He focused all his energy on pleading with the jumper to listen to him, to change course, to - hell, he’d take being dead in the water again over this. Elizabeth would send another jumper after them eventually. What the hell had he been thinking to make Rodney go out there to fix the damn drive pods?

He’d been thinking that Rodney looked damn good in the streamlined Lantean EVA suits they’d found a few months ago. He’d been thinking that Rodney had been itching to use them in just this kind of situation - he was almost as big a kid about the astronaut stuff as John. It was one of the reasons John loved him.

“Is there no way for you to make it back to the rear hatch?” 

John opened his eyes at Teyla’s calm question. She and Ronon were stood behind him, their hands on the air-tight door that separated the forward cabin from the rear compartment that was currently open to the vacuum of space as if Rodney were behind it instead of clinging to the hull of a puddlejumper that was minutes away from plunging them into a vicious reentry.

“Maybe,” Rodney’s reply was quiet. “But the panel to override mental controls for manual is closer.”

“Head back to the hatch, McKay. That’s an order.”

“You can’t really think that ordering me is going to work?”

John’s jaw was clenched so tight that his molars hurt. He slapped his hand against the flight panel as yet another mental command failed to work. “Rodney,” he pleaded, his voice sounding tight through his clenched teeth. “There isn’t time. You won’t get back before - - “

“I get back in that jumper without controls then we’ll all be dead when it crashed into the ground or the sea or whatever the hell is down there. This is our only chance.”

John shook his head even though Rodney couldn’t see him, even though he knew Rodney was right. 

The planet's atmosphere was fast approaching. There was probably three minutes left. Three minutes was more than they sometimes got to save the day but something felt different about this one.

“I’m at the panel,” Rodney said, his breath heavier than before. The EVA suits were slimmer and more streamlined than the old Earth ones, taking up much less space in the jumper but they were still hard to move about in, especially in the weight of space and - - fucking hell, they were all morons.

John stood up and moved to the far corner and pulled the spare suits from the panel they were kept in, throwing two at Ronon and Teyla and keeping the fourth for himself.

“Just two more minutes,” Rodney’s voice sounded over their radios. “It’ll be close. Maybe too close. John, if I don’t make it, there’s something I’ve always wanted to say to you. I - -.”

“Unclip yourself from the damn jumper Rodney.”

“And leave all three of you to die? You really think I could live with myself if - - “

Checking that Ronon and Teyla were suited up and getting the thumbs up, John pressed on the button that would open the compartment doors and floated outside the jumper to find Rodney practically right outside the hatch trying to pry a panel open.

“We’re not gonna die. At least, not yet. Now, what do you say you unclip that strap and we all float here until Elizabeth sends a jumper our way?”

Rodney’s hand fumbled at the clip securing him to the jumper, pushing off to get as close to them as he could manage.

“There were extra suits in there this whole time,” he said. “I completely forgot but you didn’t. You - you - oh my god, I love you.”

“I know,” John grinned.

“Dude, you really gonna Han Solo him?” Ronon said, sounding impressed. “You know he can make it so you never get hot water again, right?”

Teyla laughed. “I find it fitting,” she said. “And I am glad that you have both come together although it is perhaps not the most opportune time.”

John, who was itching to wrap his arms around Rodney and never let go, had to agree. 

They fell into an easy silence as they watched the jumper fall farther and farther away. John couldn’t help but wince as it burned bright in the atmosphere. There was no way Rodney would have survived that without the protection of the jumper. God, that was close. Too close - it was - - 

“I just have one question,” Ronon said.

“What’s that?” John asked, glad to take his mind off nearly losing Rodney before they could finally have something.

“Why did the Ancients put the manual override controls on the outside of the jumper?”

John and Rodney exchanged a look.

“Exploding tumours,” they said in unison; Atlantis shorthand for ‘Ancients be crazy’.

“Exploding tumours,” Ronon agreed.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> If you would like your very own gift fic - there are only two squares left to choose: forced to participate in illegal/hurtful activity and job-related trauma. First come, first served . 
> 
> [Bingo Card](https://respoftw.dreamwidth.org/55888.html)
> 
> Next on the list, sensory deprivation....


End file.
